After ChRIS CLÉiRIGh wrote to sys-func on 21 December 2023 at 10:56:
The reason why Halliday would not even have meant'wording-realized-as-meanings' or'sounding-realized-as-wording'is that both are self-contradictions. These are agnate with:meaning realises wordingwording realises soundingwhich are identifying clauses: Token^Process^Value.In the first clause, the higher level of symbolic abstraction (meaning) is misconstrued as the lower level of symbolic abstraction (Token), and the lower level of symbolic abstraction (wording) is misconstrued as the higher level of symbolic abstraction (Value).Likewise, in the second clause, the higher level of symbolic abstraction (wording) is misconstrued as the lower level of symbolic abstraction (Token), and the lower level of symbolic abstraction (sounding) is misconstrued as the higher level of symbolic abstraction (Value).This is 'theory turned back on itself'.
Chris--yes, theory turned back on itself indeed! But theory turned back on itself often produces category errors, like when you drive by a field and instead of seeing two cows you say that there are a bull, a cow, and a bovine couple.When you say that "wording-realises-meaning" is agnate with the clause "meaning realizes wording", you can ignore the hyphen and make the clause irreversible, so that wording realizes meaning but meaning does not realize wording.That makes it impossible for me to pursue my argument on verbal art, because my argument does depend on the relationship being reversible, and the 'bottom up" realization being dominant in and typical of literature.But ignoring the hyphen and introducing "Token-Relational Process-Value" also means that your model is no longer neutral between speaking and hearing, as Halliday's is (Halliday remarks on the difficulty and necessity of making it so in the intro to the IFG).Worse, you seem to be confusing two dimensions of SFL (stratification and metafunction) which are typically (and rightly) distinct--at least as distinct as the dimensions of instantiation and stratification confused in the Martin model.As I said, I was writing about the theory--not about the way it was worded. That's why I used my own words and said "Halliday pointed out that" instead of "Halliday said". And Halliday does indeed say, in many places, that realization works both ways. I think, actually, that he chose the word "realization" for precisely this reason--it can mean both "to make real" and "to become aware" in English, although of course neither of these folk meanings captures the distinction that Halliday is really making.This is one of many places where Halliday's terminology differs from that of Hasan--Hasan prefers "actualization" [activation] to talk about bottom up realization. For me, "realization" will do nicely.
Blogger Comments:
[1] To be clear, Kellogg presents no evidence that 'theory turned back on itself often produces category errors' or that there is a category error in this case. The example of a category error he presents is not a case of theory turned back on itself and does not relate to this post.
To explain, just as linguistic theory is 'language turned back on itself' is using language to model language, 'theory turned back on itself' is using linguistic theory to model linguistic theory. In this case, it was using identifying clauses to model interstratal realisation.
[2] This misunderstands Cléirigh's post. What Cléirigh said was that Kellogg's 'wordings-realised-as-meanings' is agnate with 'meaning realises wording'. Kellogg's 'wordings-realised-as-meanings' is also agnate with 'Gielgud-played-by-Prospero'. The difference here is only in the subtype of identifying: 'realise' is 'symbol', whereas 'play' is 'role' (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 269).
[3] This misunderstands identifying clauses. All identifying clauses are reversible. The reverse of wording realises meaning is meaning is realised by wording. In the first, the Token is Subject; in the second, Value is Subject. Moreover it is true that meaning does not realise wording, because this misconstrues Value (meaning) as Token and Token as Value (wording).
[4] To be clear, if an argument depends on 'bottom up' realisation, then the argument is invalidated by the self-contradiction that it construes. The notion of a higher stratum realising a lower stratum misconstrues the higher level of symbolic abstraction, meaning, as the lower level (Token), and the lower level of symbolic abstraction, wording, as the higher level (Value).
What is reversible is not the direction of realisation (swapping Token and Value) but the direction of coding (swapping Identified and Identifier). That is, the direction is encoding in the case of Token/Identifier and Value/Identified, and decoding in the case of Token/Identified and Value/Identifier. That is, 'wording realises meaning' can either encode meaning (Identified) by reference to wording (Identifier), or decode wording (Identified) by reference to meaning (Identifier).
[5] To be clear, this bare assertion — the logical fallacy ipse dixit — is misleading because it is untrue. Token-Process-Value simply analyses the interstatal relation 'wording realises meaning'. What could be said to differ for speaker and hearer is not the direction of realisation, but the direction of coding. For a speaker, meaning (Value) is encoded by reference to wording (Token), whereas for a hearer, wording (Token) is decoded by reference to meaning (Value). In both cases, wording is Token and meaning is Value.
[6] This is misleading because it is untrue. Cléirigh's post turned theory (identifying relations) back on itself (stratification). The former is a reconstrual of the latter. There is no confusion, because each construal is at a different level of abstraction.
[7] This is misleading. Cléirigh's post was not about Halliday's wording, but about his meaning:
The reason why Halliday would not even have meant…
Moreover, the advantage of quoting a source, instead of reporting it, is that the reader can judge whether or not the writer has understood the source.
[8] This is misleading because it misrepresents Halliday. For Halliday, realisation "works both ways" in the sense that the identifying process "works both ways". Wording realises meaning, and meaning is realised by wording; and in terms of coding, wording can serve to identify meaning, and meaning can serve to identify wording.
[9] To be clear, Halliday chose the word 'realisation' because 'realise' is an intensive identifying process of the type 'symbol' (Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 269), which is the relation between levels of symbolic abstraction, which is the relation between strata.
[10] This misleading because it is untrue. Hasan uses 'activation' for "top-down" realisation. Hasan (1995: 164):
But at the same time, the notion of realisation must include the relation of activation especially where the higher strata are concerned. Choices at the stratum of context activate choices at the stratum of semantics, which in their turn activate choices from the systems at the stratum of lexicogrammar.
Postscript:
Unsurprisingly, Martin is one source of the self-contradiction of upside-down realisation. Martin (1992: 505):
The common ground between the two models lies in the correlation proposed between schematic structure and field, mode and tenor options; for both Martin and Hasan staging redounds with social context. Keeping in mind that realisation is not theoretically directional in systemic models, there is nothing substantive in the fact that whereas for Hasan, choices in field, mode and tenor are realised by schematic structure, for Martin schematic structure is realised through these same components of register.
2 comments:
1) I wasn’t trying to give an example of theory, Chris. I was giving an example of a category error (Ryle). “cow”, “bull”, “couple” are different kinds of categories, and don’t belong in the same level of analysis. Similarly, I think that the stratification model involves one kind of category, and “Token-Process-Value” involves a different kind of category. Yes, of course, “Token-Process-Value” is a wording, and wording is part of the stratification model, but “cow” and “bull” are also part of “couple of cows”. A category error is what allowed Descartes to think of himself as a body, a soul, and a coupled body and soul; Spinoza would have straightened him out but he moved to Sweden and his body died of pneumonia.
2) I am objecting to the whole procedure of removing the hyphens, Chris, because when you remove the hyphens and put a word complex in the form of a clause, you are construing a very different relationship. The word complex “four table legs” means something very different from “a table has four legs”. So “meaning-identifies-wording is identified as sounding” means something different (more reversible) than “wording identifies meaning, and then sounding identifies wording”. That was why Halliday borrowed the concept of meta-redundancy and used the “ying-yang” model to lay it out.
3) I think this is compelling evidence that your use of “realize” is very close to “cause” or “determine”. My use of “realize” is actually closer to your use of “identifies”.
4) I wasn’t making an argument here: I was identifying the motivation of your own argument. When I said that you made it impossible for me to argue for a reversible realization relationship by removing the hyphen and translating it into a “Token-Process-Value” clause, I was appealing to consequences in order to understand why you would want to do such a thing, since it very obviously confuses stratification with metafunction.
5) The distinction between decoding and encoding is very important here. I am not very good at it, and I once tried to write a whole article on it (“What is your name?” vs. “What are names?”, something that is realized by exactly the same clause in Korean). I seem to have gotten even more confused!
6) I object to the term “misleading”, because I don’t think I am trying to lead anyone anywhere…. However, that move—turning identifying relations back on stratification—is indeed what I was objecting to. I don’t think you would agree if Martin were to say that he was turning instantiation back on stratification when he exapted the term ‘register’ as a stratum of context.
7) Yes, that is what YOU said. But then you asked me for examples of where Halliday actually WROTE the two points I attributed to him, and you apparently disapproved when I could only provide two different quotes, because the one that you had a copy of only made one point and not both of them. It was this that made me entirely lose confidence in the whole method of quotation slinging. It seems to me better and more straightforward to just say what I think rather than try to get Halliday to say it for me.
8) I agree entirely with this. But as you can see, it does make it possible for texts to create contexts, and that is precisely the point under dispute.
9) Halliday has given different reasons for choosing “realize”, including the idea that it “materializes” meaning. But I think we can agree that “realization” is ineffable.
10) Granted. The opposite movement would be placing certain meanings “at risk”. Both are moments of “identifying”—I will try to use THAT word from now on.
Thanks David. I have used your comments to improve the post.
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